Illustration Friday post - 'Vanity'

My post for this weeks Illustration Friday is 'Vanity', so I decided to 

go for the bodybuilding fraternity. I've been to a couple of these shows

in the past and know a few of these characters, so I'm aware of how much

effort and er, commitment, amongst other things, it takes to get themselves

into this shape. I'm also aware of the gallons of fake tan that are required 

to ensure they resemble the required shade of dark, dark mahogany...

Their sheets must be hell to clean....

Illustration Friday post - 'Natural'..

This is my entry for Illustration Friday post, which is on the theme of 'Natural'.

I thought my character, known  as 'Puberty Bob' would be perfect, as he 

is always dressed, as nature intended.

 au-naturel; adj.

1. nude

2. cooked simply

3. In a natural state.

An Excuse to Draw - Tommy Kane

One of my favourite artists is Tommy Kane, who has recently had his first

book published, entitled An Excuse to Draw and its a fantastic book containing

over 400 of his wonderful pictures which he draws and paints whilst sitting

on a stool as the world passes him by. An inspirational read for anyone.

Its made me get my sketchbook and pens out!

You need this in your life!

Robot Boxer

A couple of weeks ago I went down to London village to the art14 exhibition, where 

we got to see a whole lot of cool art and one of the pieces that really stood out for 

me was a little robot boxer, made out of machine parts.

I enquired of the price and was disappointed to find out that the little guy was way

out of my pocket.....by about £13,000, so I took a couple of pictures of him and

when I got home did this sketch and coloured him in using felt markers.

He reminds me of my cousin Deano, who has been a boxer in his time, and has a 

similar stance and attitude, so I gave it to him for his birthday.

 I think he liked it...

Illustration Friday post - ZODIAC

This is a sketch I did for Illustration Friday. The subject title was 'Zodiac', so 

I decided to go for a different slant on the word and I wanted to have a go a

 drawing a car. For the petrol-heads out there its a Ford Zodiac Mk 1, from 1954....

Second visit to the Print Workshop

So, continuing my screenprint experience, I spent a fruitful day as described in the previous

post at the Leicester Print Workshop with my tutor for the day, Katie, who took me

through the screenprint process from start to finish. It all went swimmingly and by the

end of the day I had, with the help of Katie produced a veritable pile of prints. All I had

to do now was return next time and remember it all.....

No problem I thought....I will go straight back on the Wednesday evening session and

by then, even with my Goldfish memory some of it will have stuck, but no, this plan was 

thwarted by my daughter, Megan who wanted me to go with her to the local dog rescue 

centre with our dog Archie, to do a 'meet and greet' with one of the inmates, 'dee dee',

who Megan was determined to adopt.

On a side note the name 'Dee Dee' was given to her by the home as her original name 

was 'Donna'? Bit Weird..

Anyway, the 'meet and greet' went well but this buggered my chance to go printing, 

so I had to wait until this Wednesday, a whole ten days since my lesson! 

Luckily there is a technician always present and I availed myself of Sarah, the resident print angel, who was always in the background ready to advise where I was going wrong. Its weird how I could remember some parts of the process but couldn't remember others, such as, which way up the frame went and which cupboard contained the 'stuff' for this and the 'thingamajig' for that. So I spent lots of time looking like a spare part whilst the other people there hurried around doing their own work until one of them would make the mistake of eye contact and I would seize this moment to ask things like "where do you keep the masking tape" and "is this upside down?"

Despite this everybody was more than helpful and on one occasion I had three people showing me how to use the print down frame. They were all doing different things and were more than happy to share their knowledge and ideas with me.

So, by the end of the the two hours I spent there I had produced two print frames, each one with a three colour design on, ready for my next visit on Wednesday.

I just wonder if anyone will make eye-contact with me....

New boots!

Been a while so I thought it about time I posted. I'm about to do a 'crash'

screenprint course, along with some lino print, so needed to produce something

nice for my first print....

Hopefully these boots will look good...

I drew the boots freehand and then digitally using a wacom tablet and pen. I seem to get

on better with the pen than a mouse as you can apply pressure to thicken up the lines.

Personally I prefer the image above but think they both will work well as a screen print.

Oh, I drew the boots from a painting by Leicester artist Paul Wright. Check him out.

I'm hoping to print on some nice paper stocks, including a krafty brown. Maybe some

cool solid colours in the background.....who knows? Really looking forward to the course 

and will publish the results as soon as they are done.

I attended the course today and here are the first results! I printed each design in 

one colour for each one. The images above are of the proof pulls.

I also did some lino printing and the prints above were from an existing lino-cut

I had made previously.

Above are the acetates I made in order to burn the images into the screen.

Black screen pull

I intend to return with the boots and print something on top of them as a contrast. Not sure 

what to do yet? I'm thinking of maybe some type going across the back of the print in a large font

or alternatively some fom of large solid block of colour.

Lino prints on the drying rack.

Now that I've done the induction and screenprinting course I can have access to the print studio, so I'm 

hoping to produced lots of new designs......watch this space!